Collection Journeys
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: A series of fics of various shapes, forms and contents, entered for Lamia's Pokemon Journey challenge.
1. no longer feeling lost

**Collection Journeys  
>1. no longer feeling lost<strong>

Diagon Alley was a confusing place, but after three days of staying there, Harry was starting to get the hang of it.

It wasn't like previous years, where he'd been there for less than a day and then surrounded by people. Not that he didn't manage to attract attention he didn't particularly want everywhere he went, but this time he was alone.

Alone meant freedom, but it also meant easily getting lost. Like Hogwarts – how much scolding he and Ron gotten for winding up late for classes because they hadn't remembered the directions.

Diagon Alley wasn't quite as confusing, but it came in second place. Nowhere near as neat as muggle London – and Uncle Vernon was always going on about how messy it was. Not even on the scale of Privot Drive – so immaculate that there wasn't a blade of grass out of place.

Except for the owl issue. But that had been…well, the owl issue.

Diagon Alley may as well have been owl droppings when compared to Privet Drive, but Harry loved it. There was some trick he knew, something he didn't quite have just yet. Something more valuable than any map that wouldn't change an inch.

It was getting less confusing though. It didn't take him all morning to go to Gringotts and back this time at least.


	2. thunder at the door

**Collection Journeys  
>2. thunder at the door<strong>

Lily closes her eyes, but the insistent knocking on the door forces them open again.

'It's Snape.' Dorcas' lip curls in disgust as she peeks out. 'Can't he take a hint and go?'

Lily wished he would as well. She didn't want to talk to him right then – and she wondered if she would again. He'd hurt her this time. Personally. And it felt like an even greater betrayal because of how close they'd always been.

_I'm nothing but an object to him…_

'You're crying,' Dorcas said in alarm.

'I'm not.' Lily dabbed her eyes.

The knocks came again. More insistent. Almost like thunder, she reminisced. She'd always liked the sound of thunder, for some reason.

Petunia had always been scared of it, but Lily – Lily always thought of it as a desperate man knocking on her door.

But that man wasn't supposed to be Severus. And not like this.

'Maybe if I tell him to go away, he will.'

But she doesn't want to, because it still _hurts_ and she's sure she'll say something irrevocable if she does.

'Tch, that guy's a pain. I'm going to hex him.' And she goes.

But when the knocking doesn't stop, Lily gets up as well.


	3. say thanks

**Collection Journeys  
>3. say thanks<strong>

It was summer and Harry would turn seventeen that year.

Dudley wasn't as relieved as he thought he would be at the thought of his cousin leaving forever. Maybe it was because he appreciated him a lot more now. After that incident with the Dementors – he hated all things literary and poetic, but he'd seen his life flash before his eyes.

If Harry hadn't known that magic spell, Dudley would have been a little shell rotting by the side of the road.

It put things into a bit of a perspective. Sure, if Harry hadn't been a wizard, those wizarding things might not have come so close. But other stuff could. Dudley beat up lots of kids. They could grow up or find some tough friends and come back for revenge. Hell, Harry could have left him there and that'd be some sort of revenge. Not entirely satisfying, Dudley supposed, but satisfying nonetheless.

But Harry didn't. He took himself out of safety's way and tried to help – even if he risked expulsion for it.

That made Dudley grateful. But that also made things more awkward, especially with Harry avoiding everything that breathed on Privet Drive during his short summer stays.

And now Harry would be coming back for the summer, but leaving as soon as he turned seventeen. And that could well be the last time Dudley ever saw him.

He should say thanks in that time, if nothing else.


	4. burning

**Collection Journeys  
>4. burning<strong>

Hogwarts was the closest thing he'd ever had to a home, but he was looking forward to it burning.

Because despite it welcoming him with open arms, it had also rejected him. Denied him the extent of power he'd coveted. Denied him a place he could spend the rest of his days – a place for the summer, for a job to stay in the classroom forever…

Hogwarts might have given him a home for seven years, or shorter, but it could have given him so much more and it hadn't. He could have kept the place he'd found there, instead of trying to make a new, better, one. He could have been content with far less, instead of needing to remake the world.

Though he wasn't disappointed with how things had gone, in the end. He had far more power now than he had when he'd been at Hogwarts. And now it would burn and be the last thing that dared to stand in his way, defy him.

Hogwarts would burn, and the last of the light's resistance along with it.


	5. two amateurs

**Collection Journeys  
>5. two amateurs<strong>

Harry liked playing wizarding chess with Hermione. With Ron, it was more of a teaching game. The other was miles ahead of the both of them and it was he who'd taught Harry to play to begin with.

Harry hadn't even had the muggle version to go off like Hermione. Interestingly though, she was just as bad as him in chess. Maybe worse. She was good at seeing so many things and yet she seemed to have no head for the strategies involved. Harry had a chance against her.

A good chance actually, because he was picking up the strategies quite nicely. It wasn't quite like Quidditch, but he thought it was more similar to that than their regular classes. It must be, because those were the two things Hermione had no head for, and Ron did. And Harry was picking it up quite nicely too. Enough to beat Hermione at least three of every four games they played.

Though when he played Ron, that was another story.


	6. odd meeting

**Collection Journeys  
>6. odd meeting<strong>

Harry stared at Draco. Draco stared at Harry. Albus and Rose stared at Scorpius. Scorpius stared at Albus and Rose.

It might have been a good thing that neither's wife (nor Ron for that matter) had come with them, and James was busy with his friends. The unintentional meeting would have been more awkward otherwise.

Because all Harry had intended to do was pick up his children and niece and head home, and Draco had intended the same. They hadn't planned on running into each other at the barrier – not after years of successfully avoiding each other in the Auror's office. A rather impressive feat, Harry found himself thinking on a few occasions, considering he was the department Head.

'Well…hi,' he said finally, when the silence got unbearable.

Draco raised an eyebrow. So did Rose. Albus just stifled a giggle and Scorpius had an odd look on his face.

'Hi,' Draco returned.

Silence.

'Nice day isn't it?' Harry tried.

This time Draco rolled his eyes. 'You're a real conversation starter, aren't you.' He sighed. 'Look, I'm – ' He closed his eyes, and changed tracks. 'Let's start over.'

'Excuse me?' This time it was Harry who raised the eyebrow.

'Start over,' Draco repeated. 'Put the past behind us.' He offered a hand. 'Draco Malfoy. Scorpius' father.'

Harry looked at the hand, then shrugged mentally and shook it. 'Harry Potter,' he said. 'Al's father and Rose's uncle.'

'You're assuming we're friends, Dad,' Scorpius muttered, glaring at Albus and Rose.

Rose had an expression that said much the same on her face. Albus just shrugged a little helplessly. 'Well, you could be…'

'No way,' the two said together, then glared at each other.

Harry looked at Draco. Draco looked at Harry. Albus looked at Rose and Scorpius. Those two just glared at each other.

They were back to the awkward staring again.


	7. unlucky one

**Collection Journeys  
>7. unlucky one<strong>

He was lucky to have such clever and well-placed friends, but at the same time they made him feel woefully inferior. He didn't have any particular talents like them. He didn't have their natural charisma, nor the way they managed to get even the most strict of teachers laughing themselves silly. He didn't have their way of making friends, or enemies.

He just trailed behind them, ever the follower.

And maybe if he'd made friends with others: people like him who weren't all that great in the end and where he could be ordinary and it wouldn't bother him nearly as much. He wouldn't have felt like he didn't belong in that close knot: that he was just being pitied, just holding them back.

He wouldn't have felt like he had to try harder every time he failed. He could have been satisfied with being mediocre if he hadn't been friends with them.


	8. snapped

**Collection Journeys  
>8. snapped<strong>

The words just slipped out. And now that they were out there, he couldn't take them back.

Severus bit his lip so hard it bled. But that didn't fix anything. That didn't put those words back into the abyss of non-existence. That didn't take away Lily's hurt face, or her whiplash tone. That didn't take away the broken strands of friendship now between them.

Apologizing wouldn't solve anything. Regretting wouldn't solve anything – he supposed it was only a matter of time before he snapped one way or another, tugged between her and his House: all his Slytherin friends.

Why couldn't he have been sorted into any other House? Even though he'd wanted Slytherin first, because Slytherin was a place his heart couldn't have been further hurt.

Or so he had thought. But he'd been wrong. So wrong.


	9. desperate

**Collection Journeys  
>9. desperate<strong>

Kreacher understood the desperate plea, even if he did not want to. He understood it because Regulus was his master and he had been so kind to him and Kreacher was honoured to obey any command from him.

He was even happy to give up his life for him, to fail to reach that place of honour that his relatives had as heads on the mantelpiece of the House of Black that was his life's aspiration.

But he couldn't be happy obeying the order his precious master was giving now. To leave him and run. To leave him to die and run.

But Regulus had given the order, and Kreacher couldn't disobey. He was pressing a locket into his hands, bidding him to run – to survive, and to destroy that locket.

And Kreacher was powerless to do anything other than obey and watch his precious master sink into the reaching hands of death.

Kreacher understood. This was his master's way for making up for a mistake he'd thought he'd made. And Kreacher had his orders: to escape and take that locket and destroy it. And so, with tears pouring down his face because he hadn't been ordered not to cry, he escaped and he took the locket with him and he tried to destroy it.

But he failed. Even though he tried again and again, he failed.


	10. wasn't always

**Collection Journeys  
>10. wasn't always<strong>

Contrary to popular belief, Lily wasn't Severus' first and only love. But the first one had been unrequited in a painful way.

He couldn't even look at Petunia Evans without her scorning glare burning into his mind and his heart. And whenever she did that and flounced off, blonde hair bouncing behind her, little Lily would be there smiling gently and saying not to worry.

And he grew to love that smile, those green eyes and that soft hand. He began to hate the hair he'd once thought was the colour of the sun, that tall statue he'd once thought could see over all the black coal on the streets. But before that, when the red hair had reminded him of all the burns from the poker on his mother's body and the green eyes reminded him of all the money his good for nothing father floundered and the blond hair and the tall girl it belonged to was like an angel that would rescue him.

He'd been so naïve to think that. He was used to her glaring now, but the first time she'd glared like that had broken his little child heart.

He fell in love with Lily after because she'd picked up the pieces of it.


	11. field of green

**Collection Journeys  
>11. field of green<strong>

The scenery was drab, and yet beautiful. Still, Karkaroff couldn't pause to admire it. The pain from the calling had faded into a dark ache but its memory was still etched into his mind – and that proof into his skin. The Dark Mark – that he'd so foolishly taken…

But it hadn't been foolish then. Who could have thought the Dark Lord would be defeated by a mere baby after so many powerful wizards fell to him? It had been inconceivable. Impossible. A miracle. Too many had gone over to the Dark Lord simply because they feared for their lives.

He was happy to abandon them all, when he could. Some were like him. Afraid. Others were sick: thirsting for blood and destruction. But he couldn't leave them entirely. He betrayed them to get out of jail, to make himself a life anew. But the mark was still etched into his skin, and though he'd brought the wand up to sever his arm and it, he hadn't been able to do it.

And now he ran, the mark burning for the first time in fourteen years in a dark ink black that was visible to any who stared upon it – unlike how it had faded into his skin the moment his Master had met his doom.

The scenery was beautiful, perhaps. But all he could think about was the Dark Mark on his arm and how to escape the curse it carried with it.


End file.
